Show Me Hope
by KoutaDragara
Summary: "I can prove hope still exists, Zo... Just promise me you'll smile when we get there." His endless optimism never ceased to amaze her. He really was serious. She couldn't possibly promise such a thing, though she couldn't deny him, either. "Ellis, if you can show me hope... I promise you I'll smile again." Zellis-centric with Franchelle on the side. T for language and violence.
1. Suppression

Heeeeeyyyy... Long time no see, huh? (Somehow I think something like this is going to be at the top of the first chapter of almost every story I post here from now on. I take such huge unannounced breaks...)

And I'm going to go ahead and apologize to anyone reading this that happened to also be reading my TF2 fanfic, _A Game of Red and Blue_. I know I had high hopes for that story, but I ran into various plot snags and just general poor plot handling and kinda lost interest the more I realized that the story was complete shit. So as of 1-3-14, it has been officially put on hiatus until further notice. Notice that I'm not necessarily _canceling_ the story. I'm putting it on the back burner in the hope of eventually returning to it someday. So don't give up on AGORAB, just don't get your hopes up either and raeg at me for not posting anything of it ever again if I never do get to make a return.

Ahem. Now that that's out of the way...

About the story you are about to read (or, y'know, already read the first chapter of and came back to this huge-ass author's note to read afterwards). This story is pretty much going to be my head canon for what happens after the events of L4D 1 and 2. I will admit right here and now that I pulled some inspiration for the story from the absolutely amazing L4D fanfic, _Two Step_ by Disrupted Original (If you haven't read that story, go read it now. Like, _now_. Well, after you're done with my story. It is so fucking good, I can't possibly hope to live up to its pure amazingness). So before anyone draws parallels to that story and claims that I'm copying, I'm trying my hardest not to outright _copy_. Just be inspired. (Certain things that are exceptionally similar were actually already part of my head canon before I read it, and thus are completely coincidental.)

Here's to hoping that this story might actually GET somewhere (I seem to write more and more on each fanfiction I start, so maybe there's a chance for it. Hell, this story already has the largest chapter size I've written to date, being 15 pages long as opposed to my usual 9).

And BTW, the cover is a WIP version of a much nicer image I'm working on. Once I finish it, I'll replace the cover and put a link to a larger version of it somewhere where you guys can find it. My icon is the most complete part of it so far, that part being Ellis's face. :')

But first, copyright disclaimer. Not that I should really have to, though. If I owned L4D, we would've already had a L4D3 and possibly even a L4D movie or two by now. :'D

Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, All Official Content © Valve

Original Characters © Me

* * *

The sun was slowly descending, the majority of the Florida sky still blue with rims of orange and pink merging with the horizon. Seabirds cried in the distance, the sound harmonizing peacefully with the gentle swooshing of the ocean waves as they crawled up the shore only to sink back into their source.

It was an atmosphere in stark contrast to the terrifying and wretched one that had spread over most of the planet within a few short weeks, with a virus single-handedly bringing every human society on Earth to its knees.

The calm was a welcome change to a young woman of nineteen who had, so far, survived the apocalypse with only the help of some scavenged weaponry and three _very _different companions.

Two, now.

She was seated atop a palm tree that was bent over the clear shallows of the ocean below, its fronds swaying in the breeze. She held out a fishing pole, found on the sailboat her group discovered in Rayford in perfect condition, but already beginning to bend permanently downwards and lose its bright finish to frequent usage and exposure to the elements.

The brand logo was still discernable, but brands had ceased to be even remotely important in the Era of Zombies. September 18th, 2009-TBA, by her own definition.

"_Come on, fish. You know you want this bait."_

Her green eyes intensely studied a small, drab fish swimming busily about her line, occasionally nibbling at the scrap of meat on the hook but never taking it.

She gave the line a small tug to entice her target. "Bite the hook, you stupid fish," she mumbled under her breath.

It ignored her demands and continued flitting about, its close proximity to the hook cruelly taunting her. She tugged again, her patience wearing thin after catching only four small specimens during several hours of fishing.

That was perhaps two good meals at most for a single person. And she was fishing for three, one of whom was a burly man with an appetite that doubled, possibly even tripled his companions'.

She sighed in exasperation when her target finally decided that it was through tormenting her and darted away into deeper waters.

"Screw you too, fish."

She ran a thin hand over her sweaty forehead and through her dark hair before lying down upon the palm's nearly-horizontal trunk. _"Great. Looks like we get to dig into the rations again,"_ she thought as she stared at the flapping fronds of the properly-upright palms behind her that passively shaded her from the sun.

The rations that had been stockpiled on the sailboat were plentiful, without a doubt. On their own, they were more than enough to last the group of three for a couple of months at the very least.

But they were smart enough to realize that their limited supply of canned goods and MREs couldn't last forever. It was decided the day they arrived (which happened to be five days previously) that meals would consist of fresh food from the island, with the rations being preserved for unlucky days, such as this one appeared to be, where the gathered sustenance wouldn't be enough for a full meal.

She continued to stare at the fronds for several minutes, the cool breeze rushing over her body like a river, and her bare arms and legs receiving the greatest relief from the heat. Once the wind died away she sat up, studied the sun's position in the sky, and cast her line again, hoping that another fish would happen by and decide to actually take the bait.

She still had another hour or so left until she had to call it a day.

* * *

The remaining hour had passed and the sky was now a beautiful shade of gold, the sun nearly amalgamating with its distorted twin on the undulating surface of the ocean. The young woman noted that it could've very well been a picture on a postcard or vacation brochure, and the thought of such things brought with it a pang of longing sadness in her heart.

She had no sooner felt that pang than she buried it in an ever-growing heap with the multitude of other things she had forced herself to forget, to hide away for the rest of her years on the now zombie-infested Earth for the sake of preserving what was left of her own sanity.

She found herself doubting that there were too many years remaining for her to live anyway; two weeks of a less-than-healthy diet and little sleep due to near-constant anxiety couldn't be good for one's health, after all.

Suddenly, she was returned to the matter at hand when she noticed a dark, slender shape darting about her hook, seemingly torn between biting the presented meat and returning to the reefs for the night. The sea had been merciful enough to provide her with another, larger fish within the previous hour, and apparently still had mercy to show.

She jerked the line away, a maneuver that proved quite successful with this fish. Afraid to lose a free meal, it carelessly engulfed the bait in its mouth and earned a rusting hook through its blank face for its troubles.

Her captured prey realized its fatal mistake seconds too late, and desperately struggled in vain against the force holding it back. She began to firmly reel it in, a satisfied half-smile on her face as the fish was drawn closer and closer to shore.

"_Well, maybe only Francis will have to dig into the rations tonight."_

It was still very much alive as it was lifted out of the water, flailing madly while suspended helplessly in the suffocating air. She laid the pole across her lap and gripped the line just above the thrashing creature, waiting a few seconds for it to tire before grabbing the fish itself and removing the piercing metal from its mouth with a pair of pliers from her pocket.

She dropped it into a stained, plastic blue bucket waiting below that was filled halfway with seawater and the five other fish, and then lifted herself off of the palm and down to the warm sand of the beach. She pulled the line back over the pole and caught the hook on the hook keeper before setting it down next to a clear tackle box near the bucket.

She carried the bucket to the edge of the shallows where she proceeded to pour out a large amount of the water, leaving just enough to keep the fish alive until they could be dressed. Before stepping out of the water, she paused and felt the wet sand slipping in and out from between her toes as she absentmindedly wiggled them in the small waves.

The warmth lessened the dull ache in her feet from the large amounts of running, climbing, and kicking she had done over the past few weeks, and that spending a semester lazily holed up in her room and watching horror movies didn't prepare her for.

However, before she could dwell on the past again, she pushed the memories from her mind and instead focused on the pleasant physical sensation of the present. She supposed she had to find joy in _something_ if she were to maintain her wits.

After sufficiently relieving her feet, she procured her supplies from the sand and began the short walk back to their improvised home in one of the Dry Tortugas National Park's small, abandoned staff buildings.

* * *

"Hey, Francis. You seen my spit anywhere?" asked a lanky man as he rummaged through an organized stack of plastic bins and cardboard boxes, a few of which he found mold beginning to grow on. He would have to take care of that after cooking.

He lifted out various small supplies one by one, meticulously searching under and behind each and every object without disrupting the order and neatness he tried to maintain.

His training as a systems analyst resurfaced as he carefully examined the problem before him and methodically went about trying to solve it. He had retraced his steps, sorted out possible locations, and was currently in the process of checking and rechecking every nook and cranny since the previous two tricks had failed him.

Going about finding the spit and treating it as if it were an issue with a computer gave him a strange feeling of nostalgia. When his mind reflexively jumped to the stereotypical "did-you-try-turning-it-off-and-on-again" question, he realized that old habits really did die hard.

"Louis, I didn't know it was my job to keep up with where you spit," came Francis's gruff and sarcastic reply, bringing Louis abruptly out of his thoughts.

He sighed and inwardly slapped himself for not thinking before he spoke, allowing Francis to twist his words for his own amusement. "My _skewer_, Francis. Have you seen my _skewer_?" Louis turned to see a superior smirk on the biker's face.

"Oh, _that_ spit! You gotta learn to clarify yourself better, man." He gave a light chuckle as he scratched his cheek. "But nah, I haven't seen it anywhere. You better find it soon, though. I'm starvin'."

He turned to step out of the small office they had converted into a storage room when Louis stopped him. "You put my skewer somewhere, didn't you?"

He had been caught. He would admit that he didn't put that much effort into where he had hidden the spit, performing the prank as part of a daily competition of wits with Louis, but he wasn't about to let his friend off _that_ easily.

"No, now why would _I_ take your skewer, Louis? Why would a hungry guy like me take somethin' his cook needs to make his food?" Louis's bored and unimpressed expression clearly let him know that he was failing miserably at convincing him.

"First off, I'm not your cook. We've been over this. Second, why would you even be _in_ here if there was nothing to entertain you?" He sat against the stack of boxes, his head resting on his hand as he awaited Francis's reply, dumb as it might be.

The duo had spent most of their time on the island together in this fashion: they would tepidly test each other's wits in random ways, such as harmless pranking and petty banter. When their third companion was around they had at first attempted to include her in their "games" as well, but she typically served as the game-ender the past couple of days. As a result, their friendly competitions only played out when it was just the two of them.

Louis asserted that such mind-exercises were very good for maintaining their mental health, and so he and Francis continued to tolerate each other's conflicting personalities, using them as fuel for harmless teasing.

"I could tell that you were lookin' for something', so I came to see what you were lookin' for. Excuse _me_ for tryin' to help, Mr. Accusation." Francis raised his hands in feigned resignation before planting them on his hips confidently as he tried to calculate Louis's next move.

The analyst's face lit up and he pointed triumphantly at his opponent. "Ah-hah! Wrong answer, Francis."

"What?" The situation wasn't looking very good for the biker.

"You would never help me find something unless I _made you_." Louis crossed his slender arms, a smile now growing on his face. Victory from this point was practically assured. Francis wasn't too fond of losing, and quickly flared up without realizing it.

"Bullshit! Like skinny, little you could ever _make_ me do anything."

"Exactly." Louis chuckled victoriously. "The only person you would ever let order you around is Bill."

The increasingly warm atmosphere suddenly became cold at the mention of their old leader's name. Neither could speak for several moments as they looked away from each other, instead focusing on some small, obscure detail of the room to take their attention off the mutual sadness they felt.

"… Yeah," Francis eventually mumbled, momentarily breaking the suffocating silence.

Ever since Bill's death at the bridge in Rayford, there had been a noticeable change in the group.

There was, of course, a bitter sadness at losing a teammate, a genuine friend, when the group was so close to reaching the safety they had all fought so hard for. There was a deep-seated fear that another member of their group would be lost, or that the group would fall apart without Bill to hold them together. There was an ever-present regret, a belief amongst all three that somehow, things could've been different, that Bill's death could've been avoided.

Bill's motto of "we look out for our own" was not forgotten by his three companions, and they each had made a silent pledge of their own accord to continue to uphold it and preserve the group, but the strictness with which they chose to live by the motto varied between them.

The three remaining survivors knew that things would never be the same without Bill, and also knew that it would be a fairly long time before they all fully recovered from the incident, if they truly recovered at all.

The two companions remained in the storage room for several moments, silent and distant to each other, as the sadness lessened to a much more tolerable level. Francis was the first to come back to reality.

"So… I guess you've won back your skewer," he said somberly.

"Where is it?"

"In my sleeping bag." This prompted a disgusted look from Louis.

"Man, that's kinda nasty, don't you think? I know you're you, but I'd expect you to be at least a little more considerate of me and Zoey. We have to eat food off that too, y'know."

"Yeah, I didn't think about it too much. Just put it the first place I thought of." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly as Louis stood up, grunting quietly at the dull throbbing in his left thigh. He rubbed it gently before standing fully upright.

"Looks like I get to wash it off, then."

"Nah, I'll… I'll... do it." Louis was quite shocked by Francis's offer. Rude, brash, and arrogant Francis was actually offering to help someone else without even being asked? He would say that it was a sign of the apocalypse, but that had already happened.

"Heh. If the old man were here, I know he'd make me clean it off. And he'd look daggers at me the whole time to make sure I did it his way, too."

Louis felt a smile tugging on his lips as he closed his eyes and pictured the scene. He couldn't stop a chuckle from escaping his throat as he shook his head. "Yeah. He would, wouldn't he?"

Louis limped behind Francis to the main room of the building, which was large and lined along the walls with shelves that once displayed various fishing supplies, designated by signs hanging above them. In the corner farthest from the door, between a shelf labeled "Bait and Decoys" and a long-defunct and empty refrigerator labeled "Fresh Bait", was a gathering of three sleeping bags.

Francis carelessly squatted on the middle sleeping bag, Louis's, as he unzipped the one closest to the wall and procured the missing spit from it. He obviously wasn't permanently changed, but Louis didn't mind too much. He was quite used to it and didn't expect otherwise.

"So how about I play the role of Bill and look daggers at you while you clean the skewer my way?" joked Louis as the biker began to walk towards the front door.

"Hey. Don't push it." He gave Louis a slight glare as he pointed at his face, directing the smaller man backwards. "I can clean a gun, so I think I can clean a skewer." He continued on towards the door.

Louis raised his hands in submission. "Well, alright then. You just might wanna have that cleaned up before Zoey gets here. You don't want her thinking you've gone soft, have you?" Francis paused once again and glared irritably at him.

"I told you, you're pushin' it. Stop me one more time, and I'm shovin' this thing up your ass and makin' _you_ pull it out and clean it. Got it?"

Before Louis could reply, the door squeaked open obnoxiously as Zoey stepped inside, bucket in one hand and the tackle box in the other.

"Nice to see you two haven't killed each other while I was gone." She noted Francis's irritated look and the spit gripped firmly in his hand. "But I think if I had gotten here a little later, that might not have been quite true."

Louis smirked and looked back to the biker. "Looks like you're a little behind schedule, Francis."

"Shut up. Just shut up. I'm outta here." With that, Francis stomped around Zoey, his bare feet making conspicuous slapping noises on the hard, smooth floor. He jerked the door open and quickly made his escape. "See you assholes later." The door creaked complainingly as it slowly closed behind him.

"I'm guessing you won your daily competition?" Zoey asked disinterestedly as she placed the bucket and tackle box on the front counter next to the register.

"Yeah, I think I did."

"I guess there was a deal or bet of some sort. Did you pass cooking duty over to him tonight or something?" Before Louis could answer, she quickly made her opinion of Francis's cooking known, not that his own opinion differed. "I _really_ hope you didn't pass cooking duty over to him. I'd like some good food tonight."

"Heheh. No, I'm still cooking, I promise. He just gets to clean the spit off because he hid it in his sleeping bag as a prank." Her face quickly twisted in revulsion.

"Ugh. That's gross," she remarked, sharing his sentiment. "That's just like him. Maybe one of us should go and make sure he cleans it right. I personally would prefer _not_ to eat whatever gunk is crusted over in his sleeping bag."

"I already offered, and you see how pissed off he got." He then hunched over slightly and held his arms stiffly bent to his sides as if he were flexing large and powerful muscles. "I can clean a gun, I think I can clean a skewer," he said in his best imitation of Francis's gravelly voice, pointing his finger in Zoey's face. "Don't push it."

His imitation earned a half-smile and small snort from Zoey. "That's definitely Francis. Good job."

"Thanks. I've been working on it."

Her half-smile increased slightly, and she shook her head. She then walked back to the door and searched for Francis through the glass. "But what were you pushing, anyway?"

"Ah, it was nothing. You know how he gets mad over little things." He joined her at the door and watched as Francis walked up to their fire pit, carrying a bucket of water that his observers hoped was from their purifier.

Zoey didn't watch long before going back to the counter, followed shortly by Louis. "So who's gonna clean the fish, since Francis is busy cleaning the spit?"

"We can rock-paper-scissors for it," he suggested, leaning on the counter to lessen the weight on his injured leg. Zoey thought for a moment and sighed lightly, shaking her head.

"No, it's not fair to make you pull double-duty. I'll do it." She grabbed the bucket and moved for the door, but was halted by Louis grabbing her arm.

"Well, if it's not fair for me to pull double-duty, it's not fair for you."

"Do you _really_ want to wait for Francis to finish before these get cleaned? No telling how long that's gonna take. The fish might all be dead by then." Her stomach growled loudly as if to concur with her words.

"Look, how about we split the job? That seems pretty fair to me. And we'll get done twice as fast." Zoey weighed his offer before looking back up with the half-smile that had become a signature expression of hers.

"Alright. I'll take that. I just hope Francis can keep up with us."

* * *

A petite woman was briskly making her daily trip to the medical bay of the USS Gettysburg through the quarantined section of its twisting lower corridors. She was late for her shift at the bedside of a specific patient, and was still attempting to calm herself from the catastrophe that had put her behind schedule.

She turned a corner and was nearly run down by two people dashing in the direction she had come. She recognized them as members of the ship's medical staff, barely catching glimpses of their faces as they continued down the corridor as if she hadn't been there at all.

_"Must've just found out what happened."_

She continued down the hallway, passing several doors in the medical bay before reaching her destination. She stood before the door and took a deep breath as she attempted to clear her mind. No need to further make herself look like a mentally unstable and helpless fool in front of her teammates.

She let her mind be overtaken by the white noise of the ship. The monotonous hum from the pipes and vents overhead lulled her into a temporary sense of security and peace.

"Come in," said the bored man currently on bedside duty after she finally knocked on the metal door. She gently pushed it open to see him leaning his chair backwards on two legs against the white wall, his arms crossed expectantly.

"It's about time, Rochelle. I was starting to think you were gonna leave me in here for a whole other shift." He lowered the chair down to the floor as she quietly pulled the door shut behind her.

"Well, would you have stayed if I had?" She meandered in front of him and crossed her own arms, mimicking his expectancy. It would seem that he hadn't yet been told the news. She wasn't surprised, since not even the medical staff knew until mere minutes previously.

"No," he stated quickly and dryly.

She scoffed and turned in the direction of the room's patient, who was sound asleep. "Oh, come on now, Nick. He saved your life, didn't he?" She gestured to him as she spoke and Nick reflexively followed her gaze, clasping his hands together as he leaned over onto his forearms. "And besides, you know he'd do the same for you."

"Yeah… Yeah, I know." His mildly dejected tone, coupled with a tired sigh, betrayed his true feelings and what he would've really done. "Ellis would sit and wait for days like a dumb dog. No doubt about it." Rochelle nodded slowly in agreement. "Hell, he'd probably cry too."

"Don't say that like it's a bad thing. It shows that he cares." She faced Nick as he relinquished the chair to her and made for the door. She then picked it up and moved it from the foot of the bed to the head, where she could talk to Ellis should he wake. "And by the way, dinner is pretty awful tonight."

"Huh. When does it ever qualify as 'good'?"

She shrugged. "At least most of it is better than what we'd been eating."

"I don't know how strongly I'd agree with you on that." He raised his hand in a half-hearted wave and turned back to the door, but she stopped him once again before could leave.

"And Nick… Watch out for the soldiers tonight." He halted abruptly and looked over his shoulder at her.

"You know that I always watch out for those bastards. Is something going on that I should know about?"

"Just… Just trust me on this. Coach can explain it to you better than I can." She felt guilty that she was pushing the job on Coach, but she was trying to avoid recounting the scene as much as possible. There was already one event that she relived almost every night, and she didn't need another.

He watched her for a moment in silence. "Rochelle, are you okay?" Evidently, her mask of normalcy was subconsciously slipping away.

"Yes, I'm fine. You just go on." He didn't push her to elaborate, instead continuing out into the hallway and onto the quarantined "carriers-only" cafeteria.

Rochelle sighed as she settled down into the well-worn chair, attempting to get as comfortable as possible. She was taking the shortest shift that day, but she still had a couple of hours until she would be sent back to the carriers' quarters for the night. She resolved to make as much of the quiet as possible while she still had it.

_"Alright. That's over with, time to think about something else."_

Once she had gotten into a comfortable position, she looked over her injured companion for any changes, positive or negative, since the last time she had seen him.

His breathing was deep and stable, a positive sign for his broken ribs. Though she knew that this was most likely only because of his being asleep and heavily medicated, she was nonetheless pleased to hear it. Listening to his ragged and shallow breathing all throughout their time on the helicopter from New Orleans had frightened her to no end.

The bandages on his head had already been removed, and she could once again clearly see the road rash on the left side of his face and the long laceration extending from above his left eye to his left cheek, taking out a portion of his eyebrow that happened to be in its path. It had taken seven stitches to close, and she had been told by one of the doctors that they would be the first set to come out.

His left arm, also marked by road rash, was bandaged firmly at an angle to support a sprained and chipped elbow, and would most likely remain bandaged for a few weeks. However, it had been explained that even after the wraps came off, the usefulness of that arm would still be reduced for a while longer.

"Oh, Ellis…" She reached out and gently gripped his right hand, careful not to push on the IVs in his wrist. She traced random shapes on the back of his hand with her thumb as she noted the state of a large, dark bruise on his forearm. It was getting better, but still looked quite tender. "That Tank really messed you up, didn't it?"

The memory of what happened four days ago on the Veterans Memorial Bridge was still quite vivid in her mind, predominating over the new event by a large margin.

* * *

She and Coach were holding up the back as Ellis and Nick ran slightly ahead, all of them rapidly firing round after round into the overwhelming horde. The screeching and snarling was deafening, and the smell of rot and smoke filled her head. She found herself gradually being separated from her teammates by the swarm. She felt the world closing in on her, both physically and sensationally, and she could've sworn that she had begun to suffocate in the pandemonium.

But they couldn't stop. They _had_ to keep moving. Stopping meant certain death, and they had already come so far. They were too close to their goal to die. Far too close.

As they neared the opposite side of the bridge, the foreboding roars of a Tank could be heard in the distance, and any hope she had left by that point had shrunk away to almost nothing. The abandoned cars on the opposite side flew into the air one by one as the charging beast effortlessly threw them aside like an unruly child tossing about his toys.

They didn't stop running, didn't stop shooting. They couldn't. They pressed on, jumping over debris and climbing over cars, dashing over the crumpled corpses littering the ground and shoving away the ones that still ran madly at them. The horde seemed to thicken instead of thin out and the Tank drew closer. It was still far enough away that it couldn't be spotted, but its roars were clear and menacing, and the objects it hit into the air were very straightforward indication that it was on his way.

Suddenly, the wretched scream of a Smoker somehow found its way to their ears. Before anyone could react, its tongue struck out like lightning and wrapped itself around Nick's torso.

"No! No! Smoker's got me!" she heard him yell over the cacophony.

She desperately searched for him or the Smoker but could see nothing past the relentless swarm. She tried to remember which direction the Smoker's screech came from, but all sounds she had heard echoed cruelly around her. She fired and fired, knowing that she was using up too many bullets too fast. But she didn't care anymore.

"Nick! Nick, where are you?! I'm coming, Nick!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. He answered with a single pained scream as the air was squeezed from him. "Nick! Hang on, Nick!"

She couldn't move forward anymore. The infected were too closely-packed, too strong. She stopped using her Uzi as a firearm and instead proceeded to bludgeon any zombies within her reach with it as she tried in vain to charge through them like a valiant heroine in some fantastic story, off to Nick's rescue. Or perhaps she was more like a wild animal, drowning in an undead sea and screaming until she could scream no more.

Time seemed to slow to a stop. Her heart pounded in her ears. The sound was too much. She was going deaf, she knew it. She was being beaten and clawed and bitten from all sides. Zombies were pulling her back by her matted hair, by her ragged clothes, by her empty backpack. Every part of her body screamed with agony.

She wanted to drop everything where she stood, fall to her bruised knees, and cry every single tear that she had withheld with pride over the past week as she was finally devoured alive by the horde.

She was going to die. Nick was going to die. They were _all_ going to die, right then and there.

There was no hope of survival. It was pointless to even try. There was nothing left for them but pain and misery and horror. There was no safe place left on Earth. Everything was dying, dead, or undead. They could no longer prolong the inevitable.

The Green Flu was omnipresent, inescapable, unstoppable. How pathetic that she finally accepted that horrid truth in her moment of death. She knew it all along, but had refused to give in to the unpleasant reality even though she saw it everywhere, every day...

"Rochelle!" She heard her name called from somewhere off to her right. "Rochelle! Come on, girl! Snap out of it!"

It was Coach.

She looked in the direction of his voice to see him clearing out the wall of infected between them with his shotgun. He later told her that she had slowed to a trudge, her Uzi held limply at her side as she let the horde overwhelm her. She had felt warm liquid running down her face, and she couldn't remember if it was blood, sweat, tears, or some mixture of the three. In retrospect, it was probably the latter.

He punched away the infected immediately surrounding her and gripped her arm with the firm and reassuring hold characteristic of him. "Come on, now. We ain't got time for that shit. You stay with us, Ro."

He took a split second to look her in the eye, and then returned to slaying the relentless infected when he had decided that she was sufficiently back in reality.

"Th-thank you, Coach," was all that could force itself from her dry throat.

"Don't make us leave you behind. Keep up and don't get distracted again. We are _too _close to fail now."

She nodded, knowing that he couldn't see her, and raised her Uzi back into firing position. With new strength, she fired into the horde as she and Coach steadily made their way forward, they hoped in the direction of Nick and Ellis.

On the right side of the bridge, they noticed two cars laying on their sides and making a convenient wall with just enough space between them for a single person to squeeze through.

"Over there! Get behind those cars!" Coach directed loudly, but she was already on her way there. With her small frame, she slipped through with ease; Coach wasn't so lucky, and had more difficulty maneuvering his much larger form through the tight space.

"Come on, Coach! You can do it! Just suck it in!" she shouted, urging him on whilst thinning out the infected that were beginning to stream in from the opposite direction. He thrashed about madly and pushed on the cars with all the strength he could muster until he finally made it through, and the duo pushed onward through the swarm.

"Nick! Nick! Come on, man, say somethin' will ya?!" Ellis's frantic voice finally reached their ears, and they were reassured to know that they hadn't gotten turned around in the madness. But that comfort was very short-lived when they realized that Nick was still missing.

They climbed atop a pile of debris between an overturned truck and an abandoned Humvee. From it, they could finally spot Ellis on top of a bus, his head jerking back and forth as he searched for their lost teammate. Just as she was about to call out his name, he caught sight of something to his right and raised his assault rifle, ignoring the horde clawing its way up to him.

"I got ya, Nick!" She followed his line of sight to see Nick dangling limply from a high beam, suspended by the offending Smoker's tongue. He was slowly being lifted higher and higher towards his captor, and she felt her stomach drop and the tears begin to well up again.

He was _so_ still.

She was horrified by the very real prospect that they were too late to save him. But even if he wasn't dead, a drop from that height could very well kill him just the same. She could think of no alternatives, no third way out. They were to either leave him to die at the hands of a Smoker, or shoot him down and let him fall to his death.

Ellis, whether he had thought his actions through or not, pulled the trigger and brought an end to the Smoker, a cloud of noxious smoke trailing from its corpse as it fell backwards off the beam, its tongue unravelling around its prey.

She instinctively screamed Nick's name as she watched his limp body fall, time seeming to slow down once more. She was thankful that a broken concrete barrier had shielded her eyes from seeing him hit the ground.

She and Coach both took off at a sprint, but Ellis had beaten them there. His head was already upon Nick's chest, searching for any signs of life by the time they had slowed to a halt. She steeled herself to hear a confirmation of the loss of Nick when Ellis surprised her. "He-he's still alive! He's still here!"

The look of hopeful joy on his face was a sight for her to behold in that moment. She felt her spirits rising and the tears continued to well, this time fueled by happiness instead of terror, pain, or despair.

She was amazed that anyone could survive the fall Nick had taken, and had thought of it as nothing short of a miracle. On the ship, it was explained to her that he had survived without major injury purely because he was unconscious, leaving his body loose and flexible. If he had been awake, he would've instinctively tensed up in preparation for the fall and made serious injury or death an almost guarantee. But even though there was scientific explanation as to why Nick survived, she still couldn't entirely shake her belief that it was, in fact, a miracle.

She was reminded of the horde when she heard Coach begin to fire once again into it, and she quickly joined him in defending the other two from the infected as Ellis began performing mouth-to-nose, avoiding the blood running from a large cut on Nick's lower lip and chin. It didn't take long at all before he came to, wide-eyed and gasping desperately for air between hacking coughs.

She had never before felt such appreciation of Coach's insistence that he teach them all how to perform CPR.

"There ya go. Good to have ya back, Nick," Ellis said as he patted Nick's back, his breathing still broken up by small coughing fits.

"O-okay, okay. I'm-I'm good." Nick weakly held up a hand signaling Ellis to stop as he got to his knees. She listened as his gasping and coughing died off, and gave a sigh of relief.

"Alright y'all, we done wasted enough time. That helicopter's gonna leave us if we don't-"

Without warning, a crumpled car flew past them, cutting off Coach mid-sentence and sending her reeling back onto the ground out of shock. The next thing she knew, the Tank they had forgotten in their desperation to save Nick was barreling straight towards them, giant fists pounding the now-quaking bridge.

How she had missed its loud roars and the tremors below her feet, she would never know.

The next few seconds went by so fast that she could barely recall them as much more than a visual blur backed by Ellis's screams of pain and terror. A fair amount of the scene had to be relayed to her by Nick and Coach. She was glad she couldn't actually remember much of it. If she could, her recurring nightmares would likely be much, much worse.

The Tank didn't flinch at the shells rapidly fired into its swollen flesh by Coach. Instead, it backhanded him to the ground in retaliation and punched a nearby car towards him to finish the job. It missed, and the Tank switched targets to Ellis and Nick. Nick managed to crawl out of the Tank's path just in time but Ellis tripped as he attempted to stand, giving the mutated creature just enough time to strike.

It showed no mercy this time as it punched him several feet away. It pursued its target, this time grasping his leg before he could react and slamming him into the ground again before tossing him onto the hood of a car. When his body bounced off the car and fell to the concrete behind, the Tank turned its attention back to the others.

None of them remembered much from that point until they had made it onto the helicopter. The lightning-fast action and sheer terror was too overpowering.

She remembered that they all had begun to fire on the Tank. She remembered that the bridge had begun to collapse on one side. She remembered that the Tank had slid off the tilting bridge and fallen to the waters below. She remembered the immense feeling of relief after finding out that, like Nick after his fall, Ellis miraculously still had a pulse.

And she remembered fending off the horde with Nick while Coach walked Ellis, who was just barely conscious and clearly wracked with pain, most of the remaining distance to the helicopter, verbally encouraging him the whole way. He passed out shortly after they made it to the off-ramp, and was carried the rest of the way by Coach and Nick. Once inside, they settled him on the floor of the helicopter and provided the best first aid they could with their remaining supplies, despite his miserable protests after waking up enough to feel pain again.

Ellis looked so painfully broken. Removing his ruined yellow shirt revealed a bruised and bloodied torso, three ribs on his left side clearly protruding unnaturally outwards. His breathing was rapid and raspy, desperate and shallow; it was a sound that almost made her wish she really had gone deaf from the horde's roaring.

Coach and Nick went to work cleaning the open wounds they found on his body while she attempted to clean the cut on his face. It had been bleeding badly enough that she thought he had lost his eye or completely cracked his skull open when she first saw him after the Tank was gone.

She ripped a piece off of his discarded shirt and pressed it to the wound, futilely trying to stop the bleeding. The speed at which his blood soaked through it and stained her battered hands frightened her almost as much as his breathing.

Every minute they spent on the helicopter felt like an hour to her. She struggled to hold back her tears, to appear stronger than she apparently was, if only to spare poor Ellis from seeing her so distraught during his dying moments. Her mind was hopelessly overrun with a single repeating train of thought:

"_We're about to be a party of three. Ellis is going to die here. He's not going to make it. We won't get there in time. We were so close, but we failed him. Good-bye, Ellis. I'm so sorry."_

She drowned out the rest of the world as those thoughts looped themselves over and over and over again in her head. She couldn't stop them. She couldn't even try. She just let them repeat, her hope once more fading away with each cycle.

But before she could register time properly in her mind again, the back door of the helicopter slowly opened and the sun's light flooded the space, stinging her eyes. Military personnel stood outside, dressed in dark suits that covered them from head to toe. Their faces were obscured by gas masks and they all had their weapons steadily trained on them.

"Carriers, you are now on board the USS Gettysburg and are under military custody. Immediately place all of your belongings on the floor of the helicopter and slowly stand with your hands above your head. Do not make any sudden or violent movements, or we will not hesitate to open fire."

* * *

Rochelle shook her head with a sigh as she tried to push the unsettling memories from her mind. The thought that she simply gave up the way she did, that she let her spirits drop so easily, still elicited stinging feelings of shame in her.

_"There's no point focusing on that now. It's already done, and we're all safe. The bad times are over,"_ she mentally reminded herself for the umpteenth time, only to realize that those words had no meaning anymore.

They _weren't_ safe. They would never again be safe. It was too much to ask. They really had been condemned to spend the rest of their lives in a living hell.

She knew would never escape the memories, the mental torture. She wondered if she would've been better off dying on the bridge. Then she wouldn't have to suffer, neither physically nor mentally.

It would all be over for certain, then. She would finally have the peace she pined for…

She was abruptly pulled from being consumed by her raving and self-pitying thoughts by the sound of sickly coughing from the bed beside her. She put on the warmest smile she could for her wounded companion.

"Hey, Ellis," she greeted sweetly, to which he responded with a weak smile. "So I see you've finally decided to rejoin the living again today." He simply nodded tiredly in return, his smile slowly fading as he appeared to lose the strength to hold it.

Ellis hadn't spoken a single word since they arrived on the ship, and his exhausted silence never failed to perturb Rochelle, though she refused to let him know. Even Coach and Nick, who were usually the ones to remark negatively about Ellis's incessant talkativeness or stop his asinine Keith stories when he started to tell them, admitted that his silence was one of the hardest things for them to endure as they waited for his condition to improve.

She so desperately wanted to hear him speak again, no matter how simple or pointless his words were. But she knew that she couldn't force him to speak, whether his quietness was from weakness or from simple lack of anything needed to be said. One of the doctors suggested that he could've possibly been brain-damaged, having suffered a concussion, but she hoped that wasn't the case.

"That's good," she said for the sake of speaking. Even though he didn't speak himself, he seemed quite attentive when listening to others talk. "Is your pain medication holding up?"

She felt that talking helped her as well. It gave her an outward focus that temporarily blocked out the raging storm in her mind. It was the reason why she didn't like to be alone, why she tried to keep herself with another person whenever possible.

He appeared to think for a moment, possibly gauging the pain levels in various parts of his body, shifting around very slightly as he tested out his extremities, the most mobile parts of him at the moment. He nodded, apparently judging that he wasn't in exceptional pain at the moment.

"Good." The room fell silent again as she thought of something else remotely pleasant to say, Ellis waiting patiently for her to continue. Her eyes flicked to the stiches on his forehead. "Did you know that those stiches on your head are coming out tomorrow?"

He tilted his head marginally, his expression becoming one that she read as vaguely perplexed. "You did know that you had stitches there, right?" He looked upwards as if he were trying to see his own forehead for a moment before nodding with the same weak smile.

It was the closest he had yet gotten to his normal, goofy self, and she allowed herself to chuckle quietly in appreciation. His smile pulled further upwards, but didn't last long before his face again shifted back to neutrality.

"God, I don't see how in the world you sleep all day and night like this. I don't sleep very much at all, and I'm so awake every day it's to the point that it's becoming a bit of a bother," she half-lied to continue the conversation on an at least somewhat-positive note. She didn't get very much sleep, that was most certainly true. Being awake and sufficiently aware of reality was the lie.

He simply answered her with a tired shrug.

She didn't know whether or not her façade of warmth and strength really fooled Ellis. True, he was undeniably simple-minded at first glance. But over the week she had spent with him she had come to realize that even someone like him had hidden depths.

They were just difficult to really place without further observation.

* * *

So, I originally wasn't intending for the chapter to be _quite_ this many pages. I also _did_ intend to get a fair amount further into the story than I did. Go figure. I think Rochelle's memory of the bridge ended up being about twice as long as I had planned, so that was something of a setback.

But, maybe it's a good thing that the first chapter didn't turn out as I planned. I apparently got in more detail than I expected, plus I'm just proud of myself for going 6 pages over my usual chapter length. I was on a roll with this fic! And I kept getting pulled away from it, which made me want to work on it that much more. (I started getting all pissy on people when they bothered me in the middle of a writing session. LOL)

And now for a public service announcement...

I'd just like to let you guys know that favorites, follows, and reviews (but mostly reviews) are what keep stories alive. If you like _Show Me Hope_ so far, leave a review! It doesn't even matter if you leave an anonymous review! Reviews are both rewards for an author's hard work, and helpful tools for improvement as they receive constructive criticism. Plus, it only takes a few minutes of your time to write a basic review. The longer and more substantial the review, the more desired and helpful it is, but all reviews are welcomed and appreciated. So in that sense, leaving a review is a lot like leaving a monetary donation except that it's free! Remember this whenever you read a fanfic, whether you like it or not. Leave a review on good fics to encourage the author and promote the continuation of exceptional works. Leave them on "bad" fics to help the author improve, and possibly bump their story from bad to good if they're willing to listen. ;)

Thanks for reading, guys! I hope to have the next chapter out soon, but I'm going back to college on Sunday and balancing two studio art classes can prove to be very time-consuming. Oh, and I'm being made to get a job this semester because my parents can't stand the fact that I like to stay in my room. :c So I can't make any promises, but reviews can help speed up the process. They're incentive, after all!


	2. Soldiers

Yay! Chapter 2 is here!

**HOWEVER**. It is _very_ important that I inform you guys of some small changes I made to Chapter 1... I know, I'm sorry. Y'all don't want to read the first chapter again, you just want to get to the new stuff. Trust me, I'm pissed at myself for changing stuff I had already written, both because it took up time I could've been spending on this chapter (if I didn't do the rewrites, I probably would've had this chapter out a few days earlier; I really didn't want to work on the rewrites, so I just kept putting it off) and because I really don't want to piss off my readers.

But I suppose you don't need to get your panties in a wad because it's not like I rewrote the whole chapter. There are changes only in the second half of the chapter, the parts from Rochelle's POV (excluding her flashback). The reason I made these changes at all is because of a lack of proper planning on my part (I'll try my hardest not to let it happen again). I wrote about a third of this chapter only to realize that certain things didn't quite fit with the previous chapter (namely, Rochelle's behavior). I also decided to make tiny edits to Ellis's injuries. Not too much, just smaller details.

Oh, and I also changed the chapter title to fit better. But that's not all that important.

Obligatory copyright disclaimer. I don't own L4D. If I did, I would be the happiest fangirl in the world.

Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, All Official Content © Valve

Original Characters © Me

* * *

Nick walked quickly and quietly down the ship's corridors, his eyes focused on the smooth floor and his bruised hands buried in the pockets of the drab khakis all carriers were made to wear. Heeding Rochelle's advice, he avoided attracting any unnecessary attention from the soldiers that guarded the airlocks separating the quarantined quarters of the ship from the clean ones.

He normally made it a point to avoid the soldiers anyway, but the fact that he had specifically been advised to make himself inconspicuous unsettled him. He wondered if perhaps they had taken a step up in their usual carrier-persecuting activities, which were normally somewhat harmless.

They were notorious for singling out individuals on a whim and finding various ways to harass them, especially if other carriers were nearby. "You gotta make an example out of a few, show that disease-carrying lot that _we're_ in charge, or you're gonna lose control of every single one of those goddamned carriers faster than you can say 'infected'," as he had once overheard their reasoning crassly elaborated.

He hated those soldiers with a passion, and he had only been on the ship for four days. He wasn't sure how long exactly he would be able to tolerate them before a stray insult managed to slip past his lips, and he consequently found out what exactly the punishment was for retaliating. He knew it couldn't have been very pleasant, given that even the most resentful of carriers swallowed their pride and submitted quietly, and Rochelle's warning only reinforced that notion.

Not even the carrier medical staff was safe from being mocked or threatened, something that he somehow wasn't surprised to discover.

He found that out the second night they had spent on the ship. He was sitting alone at dinner but one of the nurses, a particularly young and attractive one, was sitting a few seats away on the opposite side of the table and picking dispiritedly at her tray. He noticed one of the soldiers nearby meandering up behind her, and said nothing.

He had been curious as to what the soldier would do to someone had had assumed up to that point to have some form of importance or protection as a crew member.

He kept his face downturned and continued to push around the slop on his tray, but listened intently as the soldier leaned onto the table and nonchalantly told her all of the ruthless and carnal things he would've done to her had she not been a carrier, speaking loudly enough to ensure that he was able to be heard by the room's other occupants.

Two other soldiers stood behind him, snickering. Nick kept silent, watching out of the corner of his eye as her entire face flushed and a tiny whimper escaped her throat, but she gave no other response.

"Eh, sometimes I wish they were allowed to fight back. It's not as fun when they just sit there and take it," commented one of the observing pair.

"Yeah, no arguments there," the one tormenting the nurse replied as he stood. "Let's go."

Before he left, he deftly slipped a gloved hand into the back of her thin shirt and snapped her bra strap audibly against her skin. She gasped when he did so, and the soldiers guffawed through their muffling masks as they moved into the nearest hallway, disappearing from sight.

The nurse promptly picked up her tray and sent it back to the kitchen before making her escape through a far door, her face buried in her arm and her sobs apparently too difficult for her to stem.

Nick was glad that she left; he hated listening to women cry. Besides, she had no real reason to cry in his opinion. The soldier wasn't going to actually do anything he had said he would.

She was a carrier.

Nick learned that night that being a carrier was ironically the only protection he and all of his fellow survivors were going to get on the USS Gettysburg from the very people they had expected to save them. Or so he had thought.

He eventually reached the carriers' cafeteria, pushing the double doors open to see that he really was late for dinner. _"Damn it."_

He stepped inside the room only to have his senses abruptly assaulted with the sharp, head-filling scent of heavy-duty cleaning agents. He began to wrack his brain for possible explanations, but remembered Rochelle directing him to Coach for information.

Glancing around the cafeteria, he observed that some of the corner tables were misplaced, and the scent seemed to be emanating from their general direction. He turned his gaze to the center of the room to see that there was still one person seated, a full tray of what barely passed for food in front of his large form. The man looked up towards him as the doors clicked shut again, the small noise ringing out in the silence and echoing around the large space.

The man patted the side of the table across from him welcomingly. "Come on, Nick. Your supper's gettin' cold."

"Thanks, Coach." Nick sat across from the older man as he passed the tray across and leaned over onto his folded arms.

"Sorry we kept ya waitin' so long. There was… a little bit o' commotion in here earlier." The hesitation in Coach's voice didn't escape Nick's keen ears. He was now convinced of the severity of the event, even if he didn't know what exactly it was.

"So I heard," he said as he removed a plastic spoon from the small utensil package. "What kind of commotion?" He gathered up a spoonful of off-white mush and tasted it as he awaited Coach's response, quickly regretting it as he forced the disgusting substance down his throat. Not only was it unappetizing like Rochelle had said, it was also unpalatably cold.

Coach glanced nervously to his right before he elaborated, bringing Nick's attention to the lone soldier silently standing watch over them from against the wall. His stiff and bulky bodysuit muddled his body language and his gas mask gifted him the ultimate poker face, another reason why Nick disliked the ship's ever-present military personnel. It was nigh impossible to read what they were thinking, what they were planning to do next.

This advantage they had over the conman was one he wasn't used to, and the one he hated the most. Having weapons when he didn't, he could handle. Having backup in the hundreds when he had only three people he knew for certain would stand behind him, he could handle. Being the guards while he was the prisoner, he could mostly handle.

But being unable to read them unnerved him to no end as one who had previously built his entire life upon being able to do so to anyone he pleased. He felt so helpless in their presence, so robbed of his abilities.

He _hated_ it.

"Let's just say that someone…. Wasn't entirely willin' to cooperate with the guards when they asked him to do somethin' for 'em." He chose his words carefully and spoke quietly. Nick could tell that he wasn't enjoying relating the event to him in front of the soldier, and didn't press the issue. He could grill him for information later, when there were no soldiers around.

Coach took his silence as an opportunity to change the subject. "So… Anything happen with Ellis this afternoon?"

"No. He had a couple of coughing fits, that's it. Didn't really wake up." They hadn't been exceptionally large bouts of coughing, but they were enough to rouse Ellis into semi-consciousness and cause him visible pain until he passed out again.

Nick wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he never failed to find himself feeling genuine fear for his young friend when they occurred. He would snap back into reality immediately upon hearing them and prepare to call for help as he watched the mechanic being subjected to the torture of his own broken body.

He hadn't had to alert the doctors yet, something that he took as a somewhat positive indication. It was evidence that Ellis's condition wasn't really worsening, at the very least.

Coach replied with a small grunt as he absentmindedly glanced around the room, avoiding making eye contact with the soldier. Nick tried forcing down the other unappealing portions of the meal, but found that none of it was remotely edible to him. He disappointedly dropped the spoon into the pale mush and washed the horrid gunk down with room-temperature water from a small plastic cup.

"I'm sorry, Coach. I know you stayed down here to save this for me, but I just can't eat this."

His elder held up his hand in sympathy. "I understand. It was hard for me to eat when it was _warm_." The fact that Coach had difficulty eating it was an undeniable testament as to how awful the poor excuse for a meal was.

He picked up his tray and brought it to the tray return as Coach stood and stretched. Nick noted the fair amount of weight he had lost since their group first met in Savannah.

Back then, he had still been stuffing his rotund face with king-sized chocolate bars and packages of potato chips. Though Coach had made himself out to be a kind and supportive man in most other respects, his apprehension was only thinly-veiled when he had to share his precious junk food with his hungry teammates. Not to mention, his less-than-stellar health frequently caused them to stop and take risky breaks as he caught his breath and attempted to mitigate the growing ache in his injured knee with their steadily-dwindling supply of pain pills.

Nick remembered how disgusted and resentful he had been of the overweight man. He fully expected, and initially almost hoped, that the hypocritical health teacher would soon die of a heart attack, relieving the ragtag group of all of his perceived dead weight. But as Coach's health improved, he demonstrated his abilities as a leader, and he earned Nick's respect as a reliable teammate, he began to regret ever having such thoughts about him.

They left the cafeteria together and made their way to their sleeping quarters in silence, continuing to avoid garnering suspicion from the guards. When they made it to their cramped excuse for a room, they found their two roommates already there.

A spindly youth was lying on his bed, the lower one on the left set of bunks. He was staring quietly at the underside of the upper bed, his bony hands clasped over his chest. Seated on the floor against the small section of wall between the bunks was a man much closer in age to Nick. His knees were drawn up against his chest and he seemed to be studying them out of boredom.

"Alex, Rich. Y'all okay?" Coach asked as he sat on his own bed, the lower right bunk. It creaked and sagged under his weight, something that all of the beds did no matter who was in them. The carriers were evidently given the oldest and least supportive bunks to sleep on.

"Yeah, we're okay, Coach," answered Alex, the younger of the two. "Or at least, _I'm_ okay. Rich, are you okay?" He rolled onto his side and propped his head upon his hand.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine," Rich replied gruffly, picking at a scab on his knee.

"Alright." Coach stared at his folded hands for a moment and then looked up at Nick, who was leaning against one of the support poles of the bunks they shared. "Now that we ain't gotta worry about no soldiers, I can tell ya what happened in the cafeteria."

"What, he doesn't know? How could anyone _not_ know?" Alex seemed utterly shocked that someone could've possibly not known of the incident, but changed his tune when he registered that Nick was the one still in the dark. "Although I guess that since you're _you_, I shouldn't be too surprised that you missed something so obvious."

Coach and Rich both glared at Alex, sensing the argument that was about to come about because of his unnecessary and haughty comment. The conman, unwilling to accept such disrespect from someone like Alex, purposefully took his bait to show him up.

"Well, unlike a certain lazy and useless piece of shit that I'm forced to share a room with, I was in the medical bay all this afternoon, actually doing something _important_." Nick wasn't incredibly fond of his mutually hateful antagonist, a fact that he didn't bother to hide.

The boy was younger than Ellis by a few years and wasn't quite as talkative, but Nick found him to be far more annoying. While Ellis insisted on telling incessant and pointless stories of his old buddy at the most inconvenient of times, at least he was useful to the group and could think of someone beside himself. Alex by contrast was intolerably selfish and spoiled, two traits even more unwanted in the current times.

When Coach and Nick first moved in, the teen had ensured that they both knew of the rich and privileged background he hailed from. "Before this stupid Green Flu hit, I was set and ready to go to either Harvard or Princeton and make something of myself. It's my job to uphold my family's reputation, after all. I still don't know what I'm gonna study once society gets its act back together over the next few years, I just know it's gotta be something that'll make me famous and important to the rest of the world," he had bragged, and both of the new residents found Alex's beliefs irredeemably childish and foolish.

Though Coach had held his tongue for the sake of peace, Nick generally wasn't one to sugarcoat things and didn't hesitate in explaining his own beliefs to Alex. "Look, kid. Those stupid dreams of yours? Time to kick 'em to the curb. There's no room for idealistic crap like that anymore. If you honestly think that society's gonna rebuild itself within just a few years, you've got another thing coming. Hell, this whole goddamn mess is probably gonna set the _entire_ human race centuries behind where we just were. Higher education has gone right out the window for a little while.

"And since survival is now the universal number one priority, there's also no room for you thinking that you're hot shit and better than everyone else when you're in the exact same boat as them. It doesn't matter who you, or your family, or anyone else was before the shit hit the fan. All that matters is that you're able to survive. So it's time to grow up and move on."

Needless to say, Alex didn't take very kindly to being rebuked so harshly by someone he had just met. There was pointed animosity between the two from that day forward, with Coach and Rich futilely attempting to play peacekeepers.

"Oh, yeah. Because sitting around for hours by some dying dude's bed is _so_ important. Don't give me that load of shit." That comment plainly struck a nerve inside of both Coach and Nick, and Rich jumped into action as he attempted to smother the growing fire.

"Alex!" he growled as he stood from the floor. "Look, I know you insist on pissing Nick off as much as you possibly can, but don't bring their friend into this. That's crossing the line a little, don't you think?"

"No, I _don't_ think so, Rich. I'm just stating a fact. That… Eddie, or Eric, or whatever… He's as good as dead." The smug way he talked about Ellis while indifferently examining his revealingly neat fingernails left Nick seething. It took all of his self-control to keep himself from punching Alex square in the face. Even if doing so would've painfully irritated his bruised ribs, the satisfaction of seeing the smug brat clutching his bleeding nose and crying in pain would've been worth it.

"I've heard you two talking about how bad off he is. I personally don't see why you don't just pull the plug on him. He's gonna kick the bucket soon anyway, so why prolong the inevitable?"

Before Nick could tell him off, Coach stepped in and attempted to smooth over the argument, evidently handling his anger in a much better way than the conman. "It's because we have _hope_, Alex. We have hope that he's gonna pull through," Coach said calmly, trying to subdue himself just as much as he was trying to subdue Alex. "Is that so wrong?" His chosen counterargument didn't serve quite the purpose he had hoped it would.

"Pffft. I had hopes of going to a good college and making something of myself someday, but Nickie over there had no qualms with informing me of just how wrong _my_ hopes were." His condescending and self-centered attitude was burning through Nick's little remaining patience almost impossibly fast.

Rich knelt down beside the boy's bed, looking like a tired father trying to reason with his upset child. "Alex, you should be able to recognize that those are two completely different things."

"Oh, _of course_ they are. Whose side are you even on, Rich?" Alex folded his arms tightly, only making him look even more like a child.

Rich exasperatedly ran a calloused hand through his messy black hair. Dealing with Alex really was like dealing with an overgrown toddler sometimes. "I'm not on _any_ side. I just don't want a fight breaking out in here, because then we'll all end up like Marcus… You don't want that either, now do you?"

Nick recognized the name and was able to connect it with a face; it was square, pock-marked, and always angry for some undisclosed reason. He was quite an unpleasant character, Nick judged from his limited experience with him. He concluded that Marcus must've had something to do with the incident, having never heard mention of ending up like him before.

"Rich is right, son. Now let's just put aside our differences before the guards hear somethin' they don't like and come bargin' in," Coach prompted, glad to have Rich there to help deal with Alex.

Though Rich had had no relation to Alex before the outbreak, he had helped him and his mother escape their overrun city despite their obvious uselessness at that point in time. As the trio slowly made their way to the nearest safe zone, he and Alex's mother grew intimately close, and Alex even came to respect him as much as he could bring himself to truly respect someone.

Unfortunately, Alex's mother didn't survive the journey and left her son in Rich's care. She had made him swear that he would save Alex, get him to the safe zone, and Rich was a man of his word. However, being carriers made that promise partially impossible to uphold, both of them being strictly prohibited from entering any of the safe zones on land. Upon meeting with military personnel outside of the safe zone's far perimeter, they were informed of their two options from that point.

They could choose to be flown to a military cruiser in the Gulf of Mexico, where they would live out the rest of their days under military custody until further notice. Or, they could be executed where they stood. They chose the ship with no hesitation.

Alex silently averted his gaze as the rest of the room's inhabitants stared him down expectantly. "… Fine," he eventually mumbled, rolling over onto his opposite side and facing away from the others. Something about the way Alex resigned at the mention of the incident in the cafeteria struck Nick as odd. Now he was more curious than ever as to what had transpired.

After determining that Alex was through causing trouble, Coach returned to the previous subject. "Anyway. Back to our conversation, Nick." He shifted on the bed to face towards him, the worn springs of the mattress screeching in protest.

Rich settled back into his seat on the floor, joining the discussion. "I'm personally not all that surprised you hadn't heard about it, if you left the med bay without talking to any of the other carriers," he remarked. "In fact, I wonder if the _medics_ even know anything about it, yet."

"The first I had heard of anything happening was when Rochelle told me to watch out for the soldiers, but she didn't specify why. She just told me to ask Coach. But even Coach's explanation was pretty vague, since there was still a guard in there." Rich grunted in response as he scratched his goatee.

"Well, you know who Marcus is, right? Tall guy, muscular, lots o' pocks on his face." Coach's description rang the same bell as the name.

"Yeah, I think so. Always pissed off?"

"That'd be him," Coach confirmed with a nod. "Everything happened at the beginning o' supper. We were eatin' like normal, nobody causin' any trouble, and the guards weren't actin' too different than they usually do, either. Marcus was sittin' off by himself, like he always does.

"But tonight, one o' the soldiers felt the need to go up to him and ask him why he always sat alone. He told him that he just liked being to himself, and… Well, I guess the guard just didn't like that answer." He looked off to the wall as he remembered the scene.

"Huh. 'Didn't like' is an understatement," interjected Rich, a bitter note to his voice.

"Yeah…" He continued to stare at the wall for a brief moment before looking back to Nick and continuing. "He told Marcus that he thought he was hidin' somethin', and ordered him to let himself be searched. Now, Marcus wasn't none too happy 'bout bein' told what to do, and said that he wasn't gonna do it. 'I ain't hidin' anything,' he said. That guard called two more of his buddies over, and asked him if he would do it then. Marcus still said no and sat there. Just like a rock.

"Then, the first guard smacked him hard across the face with the butt of his gun, and Marcus went to work punchin' the stew outta him in return. It took four of the other guards to hold him down, and several of the ones without somethin' else to do just started kickin' him and punchin' him and beatin' him with their own guns…" Coach looked down with his eyes closed and ran his hand over his bald head. "Shit… Even _I_ started to get sick from how long and hard they went at him."

The room fell into silence as Nick imagined the event.

"… It looked like a bunch of overgrown kids beating a bloody piñata," Alex commented somberly, still facing away from the group and curled into himself. Nick could tell from his voice that he was bothered by the event. It was evident that he had never witnessed such a brutal attack on a normal person by other uninfected people before.

Nick didn't quite feel sorry for Alex, but did register the pull of some strange emotion he couldn't quite place. Before he could delve inside himself to identify it, Rich picked up the conversation.

"It was awful, Nick. You should be thankful you didn't have to actually see it happen… By the time those bastards were done with Marcus, they had beaten him to death."

That caught Nick's attention. "Wait, they actually _killed_ him?" The event was truly severe. Not only did they actually cause physical harm to a carrier, they had killed him. Nick now knew what the punishment for retaliating against the soldiers was, and he fully understood why most everyone simply fell in line.

"They sure as hell did… Blood was fucking _everywhere_. All over the walls, the floor, the ceiling…" Rich slowly shook his head. "The soldiers were covered in it too, but none of them ran off straight to be decontaminated. I guess the thrill of killing a carrier was all they cared about, possible holes in their suits be damned." He sighed and repositioned himself comfortably against the wall. "But I guess that since the ship's not swarming with zombies, those suits are pretty damn reliable after all."

"Mm-hmm," Coach quietly concurred before continuing. "After they decided they were through beatin' him, they checked his pulse and declared him dead without even tellin' the doctors. They just got a bed sheet, wrapped poor Marcus up in it, and carried him right out the door."

Rich crossed his arms and legs. "We don't know for sure what they did with his body, but we reckon they just tossed him overboard."

"So who cleaned up the mess?" Nick asked, doubting that the soldiers did it themselves.

"Not long after they got him out, they made the cooks clean up while they lectured the rest of us about how we would suffer the same fate if we ignored their orders. They held us in there until the mess was completely gone, which is why Ro was so late getting' to ya."

Nick sighed as he took everything in. "So. First, the military starts shooting carriers trying to get into safe zones. Then, they decide it's better not to immediately kill us and drop all survivors they can find off onto this goddamn boat in the middle of the Gulf. Then, they give us medicine, food, and shelter to make sure that we feel safe and welcome. But _now_ they kill off the ones that just slightly piss them off. Just what in the hell do these bastards even _want_ with us? If they wanted us dead, they could've shot us on sight like they had been or kept on abandoning us and hoping that the zombies would get rid of us for them."

"I've just kinda come to the conclusion that this is their way of punishing us for being carriers," Rich replied sourly. "So _what_ if we're the best hope humanity has left, essentially being immune to the apocalypse and all? We accidentally spread the Green Flu to some people who were probably gonna get it eventually anyways, and that automatically makes us criminals. Traitors.

"Hell, non-immunes have even gotten the idea in their gullible heads that either we're a special kind of zombie that happens to retain its ability to look and act like a normal person, or that we have a strain of the virus that mysteriously incubates for weeks on end even though everyone else turns within an hour." He scoffed. "No doubt, the military started that bullshit as propaganda to make sure that everyone still uninfected considers _us_ the enemy."

Nick found that he couldn't really argue with Rich's logic. It made a fair amount of sense, given that the larger percentage of the human population apparently wasn't immune. No matter which group of people had the better chance of survival in the grand scheme of things, leave it to whatever was left of the United States government, and quite possibly every other government left with some semblance of power, to decide that it would look much better for public relations to persecute the useful few, rather than the doomed many.

Hey, if the world is ending, might as well go down with the support of the majority.

* * *

Zoey picked the last scraps of tender meat from the small pile of bones on the tin plate in front of her, and reveled in the wonderful feeling of a full stomach as she hungrily slurped down the tiny shreds of flesh.

"I can already tell a difference from when you first cooked fish, Louis. These taste amazing." She licked her fingers clean and unfolded her crossed legs, which were falling asleep. She noted the stubble covering both of them as she absentmindedly scratched at a scab on one.

She knew that shaving was one of the farthest things from a priority for survival, with maintaining physical beauty having undeniably become a thing of the burned and rotting past. But she had to admit that it was difficult for her to completely push away her desire for a razor. The prickly feeling as she rubbed her hand over a healing cut on her calf wasn't incredibly pleasant, and she registered a hint of self-consciousness arising within her as she tucked her legs away once again.

"Thanks! I tried out some different seasonings this time. We're lucky the people who prepared the boat thought to include so much." Louis smiled at the compliment and asked the pickiest of the three for his opinion as well. "What about you, Francis?"

"What about me?" the biker retorted with his mouth full, still working on the largest of the fish. Small flecks of the meat had collected in his beard as he greedily devoured the fish, and the analyst tried to ignore it. He hoped that his growing whiskers didn't look similarly grubby.

He knew that he likely wasn't going to get an incredibly positive response from pessimistic Francis, but asked again anyway. "Do you think I'm getting better at cooking fish?"

"Eh. You're not getting _worse_ at it, I guess." Francis took a large, shredding bite, causing even more scraps to fall to his beard.

Louis merely shook his head at his typical answer. "Why do I even bother?"

"Yeah. Why _do_ you bother, Louis? Bothering is more trouble than it's worth." Francis finally finished tearing away at the whole fish, and proceeded to begin picking through its bones.

"I guess it's just in my nature." Louis shrugged as he stared into the dancing orange flames in front of him.

Their energetic and mystical performance reminded him of an obscure musical he had seen once as a child with his music-loving parents. He could remember neither the name of it, nor the plot, nor even any of the tunes from it. He could just see the beautiful dancers gracefully moving about the stage in their glittery costumes, and he filled in the silence with simple melodies of his own creation.

Francis examined an interestingly-shaped bone before flicking it into the fire, like an unruly audience member tossing his trash onstage. "Well, your nature sucks ass."

Louis rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, you've told me." He turned his gaze upwards while twiddling his fingers, his hands resting in his lap.

The sky was a rich navy, with not a cloud in sight. The stars twinkled magically like flakes of diamond and the moon shone bright and silver and full, rather like a spotlight. The waves sang their gentle and hushed song, and the crackling fire provided its own erratic beat to match its performers' unpredictable dance.

Zoey, done picking through the remains of her meal, laid back onto the warm sand to join Louis in stargazing. "The sky is really beautiful tonight," she quietly noted as she folded her hands over her stomach.

"Yeah, it is."

The trio settled into a pensive silence, each absorbed into themselves as if the others had never been there at all. Zoey began counting the stars, and lost track quite a few times. Whenever she realized that she had counted certain ones twice or skipped over an entire section, she would start back over without complaint, happy to have something to occupy her mind.

Then, slowly and unwittingly, she found herself converting the stars into infected she had killed.

The innocent and sparkling specks of light morphed into the screaming and hideous and mutilated creatures that charged at her relentlessly in her sleep, desperately tearing away at her and pulling her away from safety. She counted the thousands of human beings that didn't have the good fortune to be immune like her.

Or could it even be considered fortunate to be immune? On the one hand, one didn't devolve into a hideous, bloodthirsty beast that ran on only the most primal of animal instincts, thinking only to kill and to eat. But on the other, the world's remaining trials become so much harsher when the most imminent threat is the least of one's worries.

Danger. Danger is everywhere. Almost no place on Earth is free from something, or someone, that only desires to kill. Whether it be ferocious beasts or desperate humans, the threat of death is omnipresent.

Hunger. Not knowing how to capture and prepare an animal or grow and gather edible plants spells certain doom when one can no longer subsist on processed junk. Not knowing when one's body would submit to starvation and torturously consume itself is a terrifying thought for people who had never experienced famine.

Pain. Even something as seemingly harmless as a small cut can turn into a life-threatening affliction without proper medical care. A broken bone or maimed limb can heal incorrectly, leaving a victim permanently disabled and a liability to anyone trying to help them. Leftover illnesses and injuries from before the Green Flu, previously stabilized by medicines and therapies, are now free to take over their victim's body.

Insanity. Whether it's the simply the stress of witnessing the end of the world or the overwhelming silence from the lack of normal human interaction that is to blame, going mad is a very real possibility for anyone. Not even people in a group and protected in a safe zone or on an island are immune to losing their minds.

Suffering. Everyone suffers in some way. Whether it is the pain of an injury or the regret of a fatal mistake, the loss of a loved one or the longing for the past, suffering has an iron grip upon what's left of humanity and doesn't intend to let go.

Lost in her thoughts, she felt her own suffering swallowing her whole and suffocating her. She struggled against the darkness closing in on her, wishing for it to go away. She just wanted peace. She just wanted to live her pointless life. She just wanted to be free from death.

Why couldn't she just let go of what plagued her so horribly?

"Hey, Louis. I think your fish is makin' Zoey sick."

She quickly opened her eyes at the sound of Francis's voice, and lights jumped wildly about in front of her vision as she registered her surroundings. She had been scrunching them noticeably tightly, and her knuckles were white from clenching her fists, and her untrimmed fingernails were digging into her palm.

"Zoey? Are you okay?" Louis looked at her worriedly as he gently laid a hand upon her shoulder. She could feel herself shaking, and inwardly cursed herself for being so weak.

She sat up and began to knock sand loose from the back of her once-white tank top, attempting to save face. "Y-yeah. I'm fine. Of course, I'm fine. Why… Why wouldn't I be?" Showing weakness was embarrassing enough. She couldn't let them worry unnecessarily about her. The bad times were over, she just needed to move on and forget. It's what she had been trying to do ever since they made it to the island.

"Well for one thing, you ate Louis's fish."

"_Oh, great. On top of almost having a mental breakdown, I get to listen to them argue,"_ she thought, wrapping one arm around her waist and propping her head upon the opposite hand.

Francis stood and brushed the sand from the seat of his pants as Louis glared at him. "Francis, can you please be serious for just a minute?"

"I _am_ bein' serious!" The biker moved around the fire to his companions, his tattooed arms crossed sternly.

"It's kinda hard to take you seriously when you're pretty much blaming _me_ for the problem, when you were the one who-"

"Look, can both of you please just shut up?" Zoey interrupted harshly, not happy to be in the middle of a fight between them. She turned her gaze downward and ran a hand through her hair with a sigh before looking back to them. "I'm sorry I snapped. But I just… I need some time to think."

She got to her feet as quickly as she could, ignoring Louis as he reached up to stop her. The men watched silently as she jogged over to the beached sailboat and clambered inside without a word. They knew what she was doing. She always did it when she got upset.

Zoey slunk below deck and maneuvered around the remaining supplies to the back left corner of the cabin, ducking slightly to avoid hitting her head on the low roof. She quickly spied two cardboard boxes atop a small plastic chest.

She picked the boxes up and set them aside before opening the chest to reveal what it protected. She procured a folded piece of ragged and stained pink cloth, her track jacket, and then gently unwrapped it to uncover the one object in the world that she truly treasured.

A well-worn green beret, speckled with mud and slightly grayed with age.

She settled down next to the chest, tenderly cradling Bill's beret in her hands as if jostling it in the slightest would cause it to disappear or crumble away into dust. She began to delicately trace the shield-shaped golden patch with her finger as she studied the silver pin upon it for the umpteenth time.

She admired the attention to detail on the small piece of metal. The ribs on the hilt of the central sword, the texture on the vanes of the crossed arrows, all were beautifully rendered. The silver had long since dulled to a light gray, but she imagined how beautiful it would look freshly polished and shimmering in the light.

"_De oppresso liber_," she whispered, reading to herself the motto engraved on the ribbon flowing elegantly around the sword and arrows.

She had never asked Bill what the motto meant. In fact, she had never even paid enough attention to his hat to notice that there was one at all. Only once she held it in her own beaten hands did it make itself known to her.

Only once he was no longer able to tell her its meaning did she wonder.

She could easily infer that the motto had something to do with liberty and oppression, and tested out possible translations. "Liberty to the oppressed. Liberate the oppressed… Liberation of the oppressed…?" She shook her head and pushed a stray lock of brunette hair back behind her ear. "I guess it doesn't matter which one it is. They're all pretty much the same thing."

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, listening to the waves beat slowly and quietly against the hull of the tiny boat. "They all really are the same thing."

"_Well if they mean the same thing, then why the hell are you drivin' yourself crazy tryin' to tell 'em apart?"_ When she opened her eyes, she saw a familiar figure sitting calmly in front of her, looking at her expectantly with his piercing blue eyes.

"I don't know, Bill. Gimme a break." She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them, laying her head atop them tiredly. "I have to think about something that doesn't involve zombies, or death, or pain, or… Or the past."

He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and held it in his mouth as he rummaged in his pant pocket for his lighter. _"… Zoey. You're tryin' too hard. The more you try to not think about somethin', the more likely you are to think about it."_

He finally found the lighter and brought it up to light the cigarette. She watched him for a moment, studying the cloud of smoke he exhaled as it floated about him aimlessly. "I know. I just… I can't help it, Bill. Whenever I don't try, I end up going back to all of that stuff anyway… And it's awful. I hate it."

"_That's 'cause even if ya think ya aren't, you're still tryin'. And you're not even tryin' to _forget_, you're tryin' to cover up, to hide from what you don't like."_ He gestured to her as he spoke, like a father trying to explain a lesson to his daughter.

And like a father comforting his daughter, his expression softened as she internalized his words, and he placed a calloused hand upon her arm. _"You just gotta move on, kid. I know it's hard, but you just gotta let go of all the bad shit that bothers ya. You'll be a whole lot better for it, I promise."_

"I'm trying to. I really am… You know I am. It's just… I don't know if I can even do it… I'm starting to think that it's _too_ hard. That it's impossible." She looked away as she said the last word.

"_Nothin's impossible, Zoey."_ His hand moved from her arm to her face, and he turned her towards him. _"You're too strong to let bad thoughts trip you up like that. So cheer up and smile."_ The way he encouraged her gave her strength, rekindled the smoldering fire within her. She cracked a half-smile as he pulled his hand away and exhaled another puff of smoke.

"'Nothing's impossible', huh? Well, what about you coming back to life? Because that would be pretty nice." He laughed quietly, shaking his head.

"_You know what I mean."_

She chuckled as she closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she was once again alone, the waves still thumping the boat from outside.

She looked down at the battered hat in her hands. "Just look at me, Bill. I'm pretty pathetic, aren't I? Talking to your hat and pretending it's you… You're not even entirely in-character…" She pulled the beret to her chest with a tired sigh. "God… I guess I'm going crazy after all."

"Y'know, you wouldn't look so crazy if you were actually talkin' to someone who was still alive."

She jerked her head upwards to see Francis standing in the doorway, his hands in his pockets and a surprisingly solemn expression on his face.

Her face flushed brightly and she hugged Bill's beret even closer. "Francis… How… How long have you been-"

"Long enough to know that you _really_ need to talk to someone besides Bill's dirty old hat." He stepped inside and navigated the room's contents, bent almost comically forward to fit under the short ceiling. When he reached her personal corner he plopped down in front of her with a grunt, one hand on his hip.

"So where do ya wanna start?" She merely looked at him, her eyebrows slightly furrowed. "Look. I'm in a good mood, so I'm willin' to play therapist for ya tonight. This is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I'd take it if I were you." She was angry at him for carelessly barging in upon her as he did, but at the same time was touched and surprised by his apparent thoughtfulness.

But she was still mostly angry. "Francis, why did you come down here?"

"Oh, well obviously it's because I like to come down here and talk to the boxes. They're fucking _riots_, man. You really need to listen to 'em some time. They're much better conversation than Bill's stupid hat."

She glowered slightly at him, prompting him to lighten up on his sarcasm. "Look, Zo. Believe it or not, you're not the only person who has problems on this godforsaken island. Louis has 'em, you obviously have 'em. Hell, even _I_ might have a little problem or two. Trust me when I say that I know it's hard, but sometimes you just gotta swallow your pride and talk to someone about 'em when they get really bad. And unfortunately for you, Bill's hat doesn't count as 'someone'."

Her gaze drifted slowly back down to the beret in her hands, and she sighed. "I know… Thanks, Francis."

"Don't mention it… And I'm serious, really _don't_ mention it. My reputation's already in enough trouble."

She tittered quietly at his seriousness. "Sure thing, tough guy. But only on one condition."

The biker narrowed his eyes at her in suspicion. "What?"

"Don't ever call Bill's hat 'stupid' again." She warmly gave him her signature half-smile, but he knew that she wasn't joking.

"Sure thing, crazy chick." He placed a hand on her knee and gave her a small, playful shove. He was happy to see her cheering up somewhat.

"Ah, stop it you big softie." She pushed on him with her foot in return, but was unable to move him even an inch. He was still a wall of solid muscle, just like when she first met him.

"Don't push it." And he was still just as conscious of his image.

She laid Bill's hat in her lap and raised her hands in mock surrender. "Okay, okay. I'm ready for my therapy session, Dr. Powell."

He looked up and to the side while scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Huh. Dr. Powell. I actually kinda like the sound of that. Maybe I _should_ have gone to college." He sat in thought for a brief moment before waving the idea away with his hand. "… Nah. Never mind, college is too much work."

"I know, right?" She felt the twinge of pain and longing return as she remembered how she had spent her first semester of college. She remembered her parents, how they argued over her future. She remembered the last dinner they shared, which had been interrupted by the first infected she had ever seen.

And she remembered telling her father that she loved him right before she planted a bullet in his forehead.

"I… I think I know where to start now."

"Okay. I'm all ears."

"I think I want to start with the night that this whole thing really started for me…" He watched her in silence as she collected her thoughts. "That was the night that my parents-"

"Francis! Zoey!" came Louis's frantic shouting as he limped down into the cabin, eyes wide and fearful.

"Goddammit Louis, I thought you were too much of a pussy to come down here and actually-"

The analyst ignored Francis, much more pressing matters on his mind. "You guys. There's something you need to see, _right now_."

"What is it, Louis?" Zoey was rather unsettled by the look of horror on his face. It wasn't too different from when he had first laid eyes on a Tank.

Something as frightening as a Tank couldn't possibly be good news.

"Just… Just come and look for yourselves." He disappeared onto the deck of the boat, Francis and Zoey quickly jumping to their feet and following behind him.

When they arrived topside, Louis was already standing at the stern of the sailboat and looking intently out to sea. The pair joined him and scanned the ocean for signs of trouble.

"What the hell's wrong? I don't see anything," Francis said impatiently.

"Look out there. Not far from the horizon." Louis pointed in the direction of the disturbance, directing his companions to look out and slightly to the east.

"Oh my God…," was all that could escape Zoey's lips when she finally laid eyes upon a great ship sailing in the distance. It was a huge ship, and none of them doubted that it belonged to the military. "Do you think they came here to set up a base or something?"

"I wouldn't doubt it. I'm pretty sure Fort Jefferson's nearby."

"You're shittin' me…" Francis stumbled backwards slightly as he registered the fact that the military was in the Keys with them. "Goddammit, you are fucking shitting me!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, his hands thrown up in the air in rage.

Louis and Zoey did nothing to stop him as he stomped furiously and kicked the side of the cabin. The pain that consequently shot up his leg only served to further incense him, and he began to growl deeply, unable to express his anger in any other way.

Zoey couldn't hide the fact that she was terrified. They had come so far, fought so hard. They had made it to safety. And now that they had gotten through the hardships and thought they had finally escaped both their infected enemies and their uninfected ones, they find the military on their doorstep. She wanted to scream, to cry, to shoot herself then and there.

Instead, she turned to Louis. "What are we gonna do?" Her voice was quivering, but she didn't care anymore.

Louis seemed frozen as he stared out at the ocean. The only movement she could see was his clothing whipping about in the wind. After a lengthy silence, he finally spoke. "I… I don't know what we're gonna do…"

"Oh, God…" Zoey sat on the guardrail, pressing her hands against her face as if doing so would give her the solution to their problem. As if it would wake her up from her latest nightmare. "We can't stay, or they'll find us and do God-knows-what with us… But if we leave, where are we gonna go?"

"… I don't know…"

She remembered that she still had Bill's beret gripped in her trembling hands. She held it out where she could see it and her eyes reflexively fell upon the silver pin. "… We need Bill, Louis… We really need Bill…"

"… I know we do…"

His slow and hopeless answers frightened her almost as much as the ship itself. "Louis, please _talk_ to me."

"… I don't have anything to say, Zoey… I'm sorry…" He leaned over onto the guardrail and covered his own face.

"Goddammit…," she whimpered as she pressed Bill's beret against her face. It soaked up the hot tears she futilely attempted to withhold as they streamed down mercilessly. "Goddammit, goddammit, goddammit…"

There really was no such thing as hope. If there ever was, it was no longer alive. It died the moment Zoey pulled the trigger on her father.

No. It didn't die with him. It died in Rayford, when three Tanks smashed it to a bloody pulp.

Hope was an old man. Hope was a soldier. Hope was a leader. Hope was a second father to her. Hope's real name was William "Bill" Overbeck.

She held the last remnant of hope in her hands, but it just wasn't going to be enough to save them this time.

* * *

God, those soldiers are such dicks, aren't they?

So this was actually the point I had originally planned to end chapter one at. LOL Yay for writing way more than I planned to!

I'd like to thank the four peeps who reviewed the first chapter, you guys are freaking awesome. Special mention goes to my guest reviewer because that fourth review, simple as it was, was what gave me an excuse to get back to work when I kept putting off finishing the rewrite (I kept checking back every day to see if I could bump past three reviews, and I almost shouted in joy when I saw that that three had finally changed to a four). Thanks, whoever you are! ;)

I told you guys that reviews/follows/faves are great incentive for writers! If you want more of this story, do me a simple favor and keep providing me with that delicious positive reinforcement! Condition me to keep writing!

lolwutpsychologythatwaslastsemester


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